Marketing

As a Millennial marketer, it’s a weird feeling to listen to panels and read articles from current CMOs, CEOs and Marketing Directors explaining how to reach the “elusive Millennial.”  Hello!  We are right here in the audience; just ask us.  Millennials, born between 1980 and 1995, have experienced the launch and rebranding of social media sites, search engines and online shopping sites.  We are aware that our data is being collected and now influencing advertising creative and what ads are personally delivered to us.  In my opinion, this very recognition and insight makes Millennials the very opposite of elusive.

Terms like “emotional marketing” and “share of heart” advertising almost always conjure up images of tearful, romantic goodbyes or tender moments between loved ones. They’re thrown around much too often, alongside terms like “inspirational” and “aspirational,” in an attempt to describe emotional connections. But they fail to say much of anything.

National advertisers are so enamored with influencer marketing that a full 75 percent of their companies currently employ the discipline and almost half (43 percent) are planning to increase their spending on it in the next 12 months.

In an open letter to CMOs, Tom Roach, Managing Partner at BBH, shares data-points designed to prove that a strong brand is a company’s most valuable asset, and asks that his letter be forwarded to the CEO. If you check out the letter you will find that four of the proof points come from work done by Kantar Millward Brown.  by Nigel Hollis

Association of National Advertisers (ANA) client-side marketers are making strong progress in achieving gender balance among CMOs, but in stark contrast there remains significant work to do in attaining ethnic diversity.

The bad news is that Madison Avenue values people at a rate that is considerably below minimum wage. The good news is that most people are okay with that.

The bad news for agencies and other external marketing services providers is that two-thirds of marketers are moving more toward in-house capabilities. The bad news is only 3% of them feel they have perfected the skill sets necessary to adequately handle them internally.

Listening to a recent radio interview once again reminded me of the power of message over targeting. Brands will never get the conscious deliberation that a political campaign might, so it is far less about ‘messages’ and far more about creating ideas that evoke a positive response from the target audience. But it is the idea that still matters the more than targeting.  by Nigel Hollis

Years of irrelevant marketing has made one thing clear: ads are more meaningful when tailored to consumer interests. Relevance and personalization in ads can increase consumer brand awareness, recall and affinity. It also leads to action. A recent report from Segment found that personalization caused consumers to make an unplanned purchase, spend more than planned, and become a repeat customer. To activate this kind of large-scale relevant marketing, it’s important to recognize personalized brand experiences are best achieved by choosing ad slots based on the user, not the content. And this approach is powered by programmatic.

The current situation surrounding Cambridge Analytica and Facebook over the use of potentially sensitive consumer data is substantial. Embedded in the wide-ranging commentary surrounding this incident has been a hard-hitting debate about the direction our industry must take.  By Bob Liodice, CEO, ANA

We don’t get to pick the era we live in.  We’re human, though, and we dream about other times and other places.  Given a choice, today’s agency CEOs might dream about turning back the clock sixty years or so, when the world — and the ad agency within it — was much simpler and a lot more fun.  By Michael Farmer

Most digital marketers are finding it challenging to accurately measure their programmatic media buys and they think it’s their agencies’ fault. That’s the finding of a survey of more than 200 digital marketers conducted by Infectious Media, a digital agency specializing in — you guessed it — programmatic media-buying.

Amid growing industry speculation about cuts to digital advertising budgets, Zenith has found no evidence that advertisers as a whole are shifting budgets away from online advertising – in fact, its share of global advertising expenditure continues to rise rapidly. Zenith forecasts that advertisers will spend 40.2% of their budgets on online advertising this year, up from 37.6% in 2017.

This presentation features tips and tools from our Marketing Knowledge Center that are sure to supercharge your social media efforts.

Marketers are no strangers to managing complex relationships and campaigns. But as digital ecosystems (of vendors, platforms, agencies, business, etc.) expand and the lines between sectors blur, marketers are rethinking how to build value and their own roles.

I recently came across an article on Bain’s website which highlights the fact that a company does not need to be the biggest in their category to make the most money. In addition to the usual business advantages the article details attracting the best customers as one way that these companies get better returns. So how do you do that?  by Nigel Hollis

Holding company shares are falling.  Their ad agencies are shrinking, with low morale, low salaries and hiring freezes.  Accenture and Deloitte are the new, growing competitors.  Advertisers are cutting spend but investing in-house.  Chief Creative Officers are disappearing, not entirely due to sexual harassment charges.  Confused by some or all of this?  Read on!

TV advertising can be made much better: better for brands, for networks, for viewers. But this won’t happen until TV advertisers speak directly to TV ad sellers.

Strong headwinds are certainly ahead for influencer marketers. For one, it’s looking like this will be the year that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will become more heavily involved. eMarketer has put together this selection of articles, insights and interviews so you can understand what will be critical to influencer marketing in the coming months to be prepared—and to avoid the risks.

For 2018 MAGNA anticipates that a robust economic environment and historically high consumer confidence should generate yet another growth year for the US advertising market. MAGNA is anticipating the overall market to grow by +5.5% to $197 billion. This is an acceleration on last year (+2.7%) and stronger MAGNA’s previous forecast of +5.0%.